


Stay or Run

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Paint The Sky With Stars [2]
Category: Night World - Fandom, Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe - Shapeshifters, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Crossover, Fusion, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-15
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-06-08 14:36:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6859036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Author’s choice, author’s choice, <i>please just ask me to stay</i>.</p><p>Evan figures out John and Rodney are soulmates and confronts John.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stay or Run

Evan knew what John Sheppard was as soon as he looked at him and saw his eyes, color constantly shifting, from gold to grey to green to brown to blue and everything in between. Evan was an artist and he couldn’t have named every shade he saw in those eyes, but he’d know them anywhere: they were Redfern eyes. So when Evan saluted his new commanding officer, he kept his gaze downcast, deferential, because even if John’s last name was Sheppard, he was a Redfern, one of the ruling class of the lamia, the born-vampires, a prince in his own right, and Evan was just a lowly shapeshifter, second-class, lower than even the werewolves.  
  
Evan watched his commanding officer, obeyed his orders punctiliously, and was intrigued, especially by his friendships with Dr. Rodney McKay and Teyla Emmagan, a Pegasus native who pinged on Evan’s radar on not-quite-human (even though best as he could tell, there were no Night Children on other planets in the Milky Way or Pegasus - so far). Evan had learned to keep his head down among ranks of humans, to appear as normal and unremarkable as possible (nope, no superhuman strength or senses here), but with a Redfern in his midst, he had to keep his head down even more.  
  
When Sheppard came to Evan one night, late on a designated Sunday, and asked him about his t-shirt from the black bouquet, Evan confessed his affiliation (California, Bay Area, black jaguar) and waited. For the casual jokes about animals and subhumans he’d endured all his life. For the sly digs and knowing winks and the constant reminder that he was being punished for the mere fact of his existence. So he was unprepared when Sheppard leaned in and kissed him, softly and sweetly, asking for permission, for acceptance. Evan knew the rules and regulations. Sheppard was his commanding officer. Don’t ask, don’t tell. But Sheppard was also a Redfern and Evan was a shapehifter and Forsaken, and Sheppard could have anything he wanted.  
  
He never asked for anything Evan wasn’t willing to give him, so Evan gave him everything, body and soul, and Evan let Sheppard become John in his mind, on his lips when it was just the two of them, in bed, making love and dreaming of the stars.  
  
And then one day, while Evan was delivering requisition forms to the lab for John to sign - to the lab because John was acting as a human light switch for McKay - Evan felt it. That jolt of Old Power when John reached out and McKay reached out at the same time and their hands met, just for a second, on the surface of the broken Ancient device. Evan knew the sensation of a Silver Cord in the air because his cousin had a soulmate, and Evan had been in the same room as Keller and Galen when they’d connected. John and McKay were soulmates.  
  
John wrenched his hand back, stared at it like it had betrayed him. McKay looked startled and confused, but he grumbled something about static shock and told John to try again.  
  
Evan had heard some soulmates didn’t make it, that the lightning and drama was too much for them.  
  
Evan knew John and McKay weren’t like that. He knew John and McKay hadn’t had a chance to even try, for whatever reason, and Evan wanted John to be happy, because he loved John. The Old Powers were rising, and the Silver Cord wasn’t something Evan could even try to deny.  
  
So Evan confronted John.

It was the bloodiest and most anticlimactic battle of Evan’s life.  
  
“I know about you and McKay.”  
  
John glanced up briefly from sharpening his knife. “Do you now?”  
  
“You’re soulmates.”  
  
“We are.”  
  
“I can’t stand in the way of that.”  
  
“You aren’t standing in the way of anything.”  
  
“You don’t love me, do you?”  
  
“Have I ever told you I love you?”  
  
“No. No, you never have. I can’t keep doing this, John.” But Evan wanted to. He wanted, desperately.  
  
“Then don’t.”  
  
Evan had been attacked once, by a hunter armed with a silver blade. He’d lain in an alley and felt himself bleeding out as the silver poison spread through his veins. That same sensation flooded him again, and he couldn’t breathe.  
  
He forced himself to turn and head for the door. _Please,_ he begged, _just ask me to stay._  
  
But John didn’t say a word, and Evan initiated the lock on the door, and then he was standing in the doorway, and the man he’d left behind him was Colonel Sheppard and nothing more and Evan had to find someplace isolated so he could cry or, better yet, assume his true form and run and run and run.


End file.
